


Chapter 2 - The White Dragon

by Lesetoilesfous



Series: Boys In Blue [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Crime Fighting, Drama, Eventual Romance, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:00:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4436438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesetoilesfous/pseuds/Lesetoilesfous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killugon Detective AU. Recently transferred Second Detective Killua Zoldyck isn't bitter about it, Police Officer Gon Freecs works alone because no one else can keep up. They're thrown together to solve a homicide. Involving gangs, drugs and people in uniform. Who doesn't love a mystery?</p><p>*</p><p>“Since I’m pretty sure that’s breaking our code of practice, why so honest? What makes you think I’m trustworthy?”</p><p>Gon offers him a crooked smile. “Well, I couldn’t think of a better lie.” Killua blinks, but Gon isn’t done. Around them footsteps thump erratically back and forth from carpet to linoleum. Phones titter and coffee gurgles, distantly, in the breakroom. “You don’t want to swap me for another officer, so you probably wouldn’t do anything anyway.” Killua raises his eyebrows. “And we’re supposed to be partners. If I’m going to trust you with a gun at my back, then I can tell you I don’t like the morgue.”</p><p>“You. The homicide officer. Don’t like the morgue.”</p><p>*</p><p>[ Chapter 2 of Metavirus and my Boys in Blue challenge! Don't forget to check our tumblr accounts for additional content, and our other challenge set in late medieval Japan, 'Duty'! ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter 2 - The White Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MetaVirus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetaVirus/gifts).



She was beautiful.

 

Killua wasn’t a fan of the morgue. He added it to his mental list of reasons for not being bitter about his ‘promotion.’ Still and white, now, beneath a thin mint green cloth, their murder victim looked almost serene. Her eyelashes were long and thick and gold. Her lips were chapped and pink. Her face was clean and her hair, damp and combed away from her forehead, was a dark honey blonde. Killua stared for a moment, and hoped that his companions wouldn’t mention it. Sympathy, in his line of work, was not a luxury anyone could often afford.

 

“Your victim was 34 years old.” Their ME says, clipboard in hand. He’s tall, with neatly combed, short black hair and a haze of morning stubble the captain would have his head for. “Guys on the scene put time of death around 2am and I’m inclined to agree.”

 

He stops. Killua tilts his head, though it’s Gon who speaks. “But?”

 

“She died around 2am. But that wasn’t when she was stabbed.”

 

Silence rings through the cold space. Killua glances at the woman again. She looks as serene as ever. “I’m sure you’re going to explain…?”

 

The medical examiner, a Dr L. P. Knight, waves them towards the trolley on which their victim is resting. He carefully pulls back the sheet above her body, exposing 12 clean incisions beneath, littering her chest and stomach. “These.” His hand hovers above the cuts, they’re garish against her pallid skin. “Are not what killed her.”

 

His hand moves to a slightly wider scar just beneath her belly button. Now he’s pointed it out, it’s clear that it was made by a different instrument. He turns, picking up a plastic bag from a table covered in vials and metal utensils. In the bag is a machete, decorated with lacquered wooden panels inlaid with pearl. “This is.”

 

He pauses, putting down the bag and very gently replacing the sheet. Gon takes the knife, narrowing his eyes before handing it to Killua.

 

It doesn’t weigh much. Killua looks back to the ME. “There’s something else.”

 

He nods. “She killed herself. About two hours before the first incisions were made.”

 

Gon frowns, this time Killua beats him. “That’s a pretty tight window.”

 

“Yeah. Not normally possible, but it was the first thing that stood out when they brought her in.” He gestures towards the trolley. “No defensive wounds.”

 

“What?”

 

“Exactly. 12 stab wounds and no resistance. It doesn’t make any sense. I found one ring of bruises.” He moves back to the trolley, flipping the cloth. Their victim’s hands are long, and slender. Her nails are painted pink. They would have matched her clothes.

 

He points, but he doesn’t need to. A ring of bruises, fingerprints and rough lines, ring her wrist like an indigo bracelet. “But this was some time before her death. Within 48 hours, but no less than 6. There are no bruises next to the wounds. So a) she wasn’t resisting. I’ve found no drugs in her system, and her nerves were undamaged, so unless she was the terminator she was at the very least unconscious.” Neither Gon nor Killua smile. The ME sighs and continues. “And b) any force that might have been needed to make these stab wounds wasn’t performed whilst her body could still bruise. Which means it has to have been more than an hour after death.”

 

“So she had…an altercation with someone.” Killua raises an eyebrow at his officer. Gon ignores him. “Six hours later she kills herself, and two hours after that she’s stabbed 12 times?” The ME nods. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

 

He shrugs, moving back towards his computer and fishing a thick file from an unsteady stack, piled precariously beside his coffee. “Hey, that’s for you to figure out. I’m just here to tell you what I see.”

 

“Don’t do us any favours.” Killua murmurs, eyes tripping back again towards the woman. She could almost be sleeping. But the stench of chemicals is sharp and heavy in his mouth, and it’s hard to convince himself of the illusion.

 

“I’ve done you plenty, Zoldyck.”

 

The corner of his mouth curls. “You’ve opened more questions than you’ve answered.”

 

The ME smirks, handing him the file. He takes it, flicking through the first photos and the notes to which they’re attached with misshapen paperclips. “Aren’t detectives supposed to like questions?”

 

“Only if they fall within parameters that suit us.”

 

“Sorry, do you know each other?”

 

Both of them jump. Gon offers them a lopsided smile. “Can’t help the feeling you’ve had this conversation before.”

 

“Wait, since when do you have a partner?” The ME turns to Killua. He’s still reading the notes, chewing through terms like ‘post-mortem hypostasis’. He barely looks up, glancing from Gon to the pathologist for only a moment.

 

“You only just noticed? He spoke to you.”

 

“Ah shit –“

 

“Language, Dr. Knight.”

 

Killua smirks, spinning on his heel with a squeak on the linoleum and heading back to the body. The ME glares after him. Gon offers an awkward, half-hearted laugh that falls short in the long, wide room.

 

“Sorry. I get a bit absorbed in my work sometimes.”

 

“No no it’s fine. I know what you mean.” Killua moves the thin, stiff sheet a little, gently turning their victim’s cold hand to look a little more closely at the markings on her palm. Propped in his right hand, the photos of the same are glossy and clear. He narrows his eyes at the letters he finds there. 白龍. Bái lóng. He knows what that means.

 

“My name’s Leorio. Well, Dr Leorio Paladin-Knight. But that’s a bit of a mouthful.” The room is wide and empty, so Gon’s sharp intake of breath whistles loudly through the space, despite Leorio’s burbling.

 

Killua glances up, not before setting their victim’s palm down and covering it again with the sheet. Gon is leaning forwards, big hands out, clasping Leorio’s offered palm and shaking it, hard, to judge by the way his wiry body jerks with the movement.

 

“I'm Gon. Gon Freecs. We used to be neighbours.”

 

Killua flips the folder shut, looking from one to the other as Leorio’s narrow brown eyes widen, fractionally, behind the bottle glass lenses of his glasses. “Gon? My Gon? Crazy, street fighter, tree hugger Gon?”

 

The Gon in question laughs. “Yeah, you nerd! “ He lets go of Leorio’s palm, though he does so slowly. Leorio shakes it when he does, flexing his fingers, which are white and red where they’d been squeezed in his grip. Gon doesn’t notice, beaming so widely his ears are pricked and his cheeks are dimpled. “Wow. You’ve changed. You look _old._ ”

 

Leorio sputters. “Says you. You’re.” He flounders. Gon, strong and bronze and bright, can hardly be called old yet. He glances at Killua, who smirks, helpfully, and offers a shrug. With a huff, Leorio settles on “tall. You’re tall.”

 

Gon giggles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I am these days.” Killua glances at him. There’s barely an inch between them, but he’s the taller. What he gains in height, however, Gon more than makes up for in breadth. He doesn’t comment. “Man, how long’s it been? 15 years?”

 

“Give or take.” Leorio’s smiling now too, and he looks at Gon with the same fondness he’s receiving. Killua shifts from one foot to another. He clears his throat.

 

“Not to interrupt this charming reunion, but some of us are being paid to be here.” Both Gon and Leorio jump. He offers a small smile of his own. “Though I’ve no doubt you’ll find time to catch up later. Dr Knight, is there anything else you wanted to mention?”

 

Leorio frowns, fishing the file open on his keyboard from behind him and flicking through it. He pauses, looking over his glasses to meet Killua’s eyes. “I presume you noticed her hands?” He nods.

 

“I’ve taken that into account.” Gon frowns, opening his mouth, but Leorio shuts his file and speaks first.

 

“Then that’s all of it. The only other thing I’d like to mention is that your victim was a transgender woman.” Gon is surprised. Killua isn’t. Leorio adjusts his tie. “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of hate crime, considering the statistics however I personally didn’t find any injuries cogent with that theory in this case.” He pauses. “Even the stab wounds. To create those without leaving bruising would require some skill. And whoever did it made a point of avoiding any personal or private areas.”

 

“No DNA?”

 

Leorio shakes his head. “I can tell you that at some point she petted a black cat. But whoever did this was careful. And there’s a possibility that was whoevers, plural.”

 

Killua raises an eyebrow. Leorio fishes the photograph of their victim’s hands from his file. “Whoever did this did it not long after she died. As in, less than half an hour. Maybe less than 15 minutes. It’s possible that the people who stabbed her made these then waited a few hours, but if so then there should have been at least a trace of their DNA on the crime scene.”

 

“Or they left and came back.” Gon says it quietly, frowning at the photo. Leorio spreads his hands, palms up.

 

“That’s for you to decide.”

 

Killua waves the file, shrugging his jacket into a slightly more comfortable position at the same time and tugging at the waist of his pants. He doesn’t notice Gon glancing down as he does. He doesn’t notice Leorio catching him, either. “Cheers Knight.” He leaves without a backward glance. After a moment, Gon’s footsteps follow him.

 

* * *

 

“So you know Leorio, huh?”

 

They get into the lift that’ll take them back up to the precinct. It’s empty, but then the morgue is rarely busy on Tuesdays. Gon doesn’t look at him when he replies. Both of them watch the smudged steel numbers glow and fade as they pass the first two floors. “Yeah, we go way back.”

 

“But you didn’t know he worked here?”

 

“Huh? Oh. Ah, no. I didn’t.”

 

“And how long have you been working on homicide?”

 

A smile twists onto Gon’s features, and he glances sidelong at Killua, who has one white eyebrow raised in a perfect, incredulous arc. “About 5 years?”

 

“Leorio’s been here for 3. You’re telling me you never saw him before today?”

 

Their lift arrives with a muted ding. The doors slide open, and the murmur of the bullring greets them with the smell of paper, sweat and coffee. “I don’t go down to the morgue very often.”

 

“Do you go down at all?”

 

Gon’s taken the lead now. Killua still doesn’t technically know where his desk is. He makes a point of not meeting any co-worker’s gaze. He’ll deal with niceties tomorrow. “Not really?” He shrugs, turning as he’s walking and deftly sidestepping a third grade detective with a stack of papers taller than she is. “I’m normally needed on the street, and since I’m not a fan of the morgue and a lot of people here can’t do the physical stuff I can, it worked.”

 

“So you picked and chose?” Gon blushes, shrugs and nods, pausing at a wide, battered oak desk with a black nameplate reading: ‘Second Detective Zoldyck.’

 

“This is you.”

 

“Thank you, I can read.” Killua drops the file onto his desk and sinks into the chair beside it. It creaks but manages. Gon pulls up a seat beside him. “Since I’m pretty sure that’s breaking our code of practice, why so honest? What makes you think I’m trustworthy?”

 

Gon offers him a crooked smile. “Well, I couldn’t think of a better lie.” Killua blinks, but Gon isn’t done. Around them footsteps thump erratically back and forth from carpet to linoleum. Phones titter and coffee gurgles, distantly, in the breakroom. “You don’t want to swap me for another officer, so you probably wouldn’t do anything anyway.” Killua raises his eyebrows. “And we’re supposed to be partners. If I’m going to trust you with a gun at my back, then I can tell you I don’t like the morgue.”

 

“You. The homicide officer. Don’t like the morgue.”

 

Gon has spun the file around and is flicking through it. He hums. “A lot of pilots don’t like heights.”

 

“Similar. Not the same.”

 

“So how’d you know him?”

 

“Hm?” Killua frowns. He’d been looking at the file upside down, where Gon had settled on the photo of the girl’s palms. He rubs the inside of his forearm.

 

“Leorio. You were in narcotics, weren’t you? How’d you get to know our pathologist?”

 

“Oh, right. Before I was. Transferred.” He chews the word, enunciating it with exaggeration, slowly. “I was working on some of the big cartels.”

 

“The mob?” Gon looks up. “Who?”

 

“The Chinese and the Ryodan, mostly. Homicide tends to be where they trip up, and I wasn’t getting anywhere with middle class teenagers pissing themselves over a bag of weed. Bumped into Leorio on a crime scene at some point and went from there.”

 

“You’d think homicide would be where they’d be most careful.”

 

Killua shrugs out of his jacket, slinging it onto the back of his chair. “Maybe. But when it comes to drugs, murder usually falls into two categories: cover up or statement killing. If it’s a cover up, they don’t have the time to make a proper job of it. It’ll be sloppy, rushed. If it’s a statement, then it tells us something about who they’re talking to, and why. And since it’s more about the statement than the victim, it’s often a way to trace back to the killer and go from there.”

 

“Sure sound excited about homicide for a guy pissed at his promotion.”

 

Killua huffs, leaning back in his chair. “Am I that transparent?”

 

“Didn’t get the impression you were trying to hide it.” A grin curls the corner of Gon’s mouth. Killua grunts, sitting up and taking the file back. Gon keeps the picture of their victim’s palms.

 

“It’s not the murder that interests me. It’s the problem. And homicide is usually the end of the story. “

 

“Not this time.”

 

“This wasn’t homicide.”

 

“Doesn’t look like it.” Killua pauses and nods. It’s an important distinction. He glances down at the photos on his desk. Their victim’s wounds are as garish here as they were down below. Glancing away, he logs into the computer he’s been provided.  “So what’s the plan of action?”

 

“First, we identify her.” Killua’s fingers rattle over the stiff keyboard, opening a browser and his inbox, typing in an address that auto fills after the first two letters and punching in an email, glancing at the file for a reference number.

 

“Will this help?” Gon waves the photo of her palms. Killua clicks send, then glances back at him.

 

“No.”

 

“What is it? You seem to know.”

 

Killua purses his lips. His outbox hums as it finishes sending his email. The internet speed is going to take some getting used to. “The White Dragon.” When Gon doesn’t react, he elaborates. “It’s the name the Chinese cartel in New York has given itself. They deal in coke and heroin, mainly, but members of the inner sanctum are suspected for a slew of high profile killings.” He rubs his arm. “That’s just their name in mandarin.”

 

“You speak it?”

 

Killua’s mouth curls. “A little. “ He leans back in his chair. “If they were involved it might explain the suicide. They’re not above torture, or blackmail. They could have forced her hand somehow. But.”

 

“That still leaves the other wounds.” Gon finishes, for him, putting down the photograph, and blushes ruddy when Killua stares. “Oh, sorry. I thought –“

 

He shakes his head. “No. Took the words right out of my mouth.” He sits up. “At the moment this is all speculation, though. You look into the knife and her clothes. They seemed pretty high spec, if they’re tailored it could be a shortcut to getting a name for our vic.”

 

Gon nods, standing. “What about you?”

 

Killua flips open his notepad. “I’m gonna call Menchi’s. It’s a restaurant on the corner near where Jane Doe was killed. I’ll see if can pull CCTV. Question is whether she went there for a reason, or whether she was taken post mortem. In which case we’re looking for a second crime scene.”

 

Gon nods, spinning on his heel, and Killua watches him go before turning back to his computer. Flipping through his notes, he opens three new tabs. He might as well scope out the area while he’s at it. He taps his desk whilst he waits for the page to load. He needs a coffee.

 

* * *

 

 Her name was Pakunoda.

 

Killua pulls a long drag from the cigarette between his lips before dropping it and crushing the butt beneath his heel. His shirt is untucked and his sleeves are rolled. The night is warm and humid. Above him, a cartoon pig buzzes cheerfully above stylised angular green capitals that read ‘Menchi’s: time to feast!’ The restaurant is closed. The tape from earlier is gone. He’ll hand it to forensics, they work fast.

 

The carnations in his hand are pink, blue, and white. A little worse for wear thanks to the subway and the heat. He crouches and places them gently against the brick, pressing his palm to the wall and shutting his eyes for a moment. Then he stands, shoving his hands into his pockets and walking away.

 

When he’s home, he calls Alluka. They talk until she’s tired and he doesn’t mention Pakunoda. He smokes and sits on the roof beside a glass of whiskey. When the call’s finished, he lays his arm on the table. The phases of the moon stand out, neat, symmetrical and monochrome against the pale skin of his forearm in the artificial starlight of skyscraper windows. His fingers run over the tattoos, tripping against the pinprick bumps beneath them that litter the lines of his veins. He lets out a long, slow, deep breath. Then he finishes his drink and heads downstairs.

 

He gets ready for bed in silence, and locks every door behind him as he does. He checks his badge is in his bedside drawer and that his gun is unloaded and locked. He slips a stiletto beneath his pillow. He drops his suit trousers in a pile in the corner. On his bedside table, a picture of himself and Alluka beams into the twilight. It’s about all the decoration there is. He unbuttons his shirt, slowly, peeling it away from his skin, sticky with sweat.

 

Moonlight filters in between the blinds, catching silver on the scales of the great white dragon that writhes across his back, from the nape of his neck to the dip of his spine. Killua stretches, and checks his alarm, and gets into bed. Then he stares at his ceiling and the bare light bulb hanging there, until, at last, he sleeps.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is part 2 of the Boys in Blue story. I personally head canon Pakunoda as trans. I'm not sure exactly why, I don't know that there's a lot I could use in canon. It's just how I read her. She's awesome and badass and I love the fact she's sort of the heart of the phantom troupe. 
> 
> Also tattoos! I just really like punkass grumpy detective Killua. I'll be posting more of my thoughts online about his tattoos (also piercings) so if you're interested you're welcome to check it out!
> 
> Whodunnit? It's up to you and my partner in crime to decide. In the mean time, hope you like these grumpy children. Feel free to check out Metavirus at mortalvirus.tumblr.com , or me at lesetoilesfous.tumblr.com for more of the Boys in Blue! Theories, drabbles and canon divergence will be posted there under BIB - Arcade mode. 
> 
> And of course, don't forget to read part 1! 'Killua the Second Grade Detective', by the lovely Metavirus, also in this collection.


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